DWR Plays Fast and Loose with Delta Conveyance Project Analyses
By Robert Wright, Counsel, Sierra Club California; and Carolee Krieger, Executive Director, California Water Impact Network
Claiming it will solve California's water woes, Governor Gavin Newsom has made the proposed Delta Conveyance Project (DCP) a centerpiece goal of his administration. If completed, the DCP will include a tunnel to shuttle Northern California water under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to South State water distributors, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD), the largest urban water district in the state.
But a deep analysis of the DCP conducted by the California Water Impact Network determined the $16-billion project doesn’t pencil out for MWD. The author of the report is Max Gomberg, a water policy expert and the former Climate Change and Water Conservation Manager for the State Water Resources Control Board. Gomberg observed the DCP "…has three foundational flaws: an exorbitant price tag, environmental restrictions on operations, and the impacts of climate change on deliveries."
Gomberg stated MWD was obliged to produce detailed cost estimates and alternatives to the DCP, including local projects to capture stormwater, clean up contaminated groundwater, and recycle wastewater. The agency failed to meet this responsibility.
But MWD is not alone in its skewed assessment of the DCP. A similar disassociation from fiscal and hydrological realities appears to have afflicted the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), which oversees the State Water Project and all its existing or planned components – including the DCP.
When DWR initiated the environmental review process for the DCP on January 15, 2020, its own Environmental Impact Report mandated a description of "…a range of reasonable alternatives to the project...”. As a part of this analysis, DWR was required to provide a benefit-cost analysis and financial analysis of all alternatives during the planning process. But the agency refused to undertake such analyses until after its selection of the "preferred alternative" – the DCP. Indeed, DWR still hasn't provided a benefit-cost analysis of the DCP and its alternatives.
From the perspective of Southern California's water agencies and ratepayers, the situation is analogous to an aspiring homebuyer considering the purchase of one of several houses – without knowing the cost of any of them. But this isn't a mere house were talking about: it's one of the most expensive and controversial public works projects in California history. And DWR is playing it fast and loose, scamping its basic due diligence.
Nor are the DCP's "costs" restricted to the financial variety. The project would inflict ruinous ecological damage to the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary by further reducing freshwater flows through the system.
Further, voters already have turned down the whole notion of a trans-Delta water conveyance project. The DCP, after all, is nothing more than an updated version of the Peripheral Canal, which Californians rejected in a statewide referendum by 62.7% to 37.39% in 1982.
By selecting the DCP before doing cost analyses on all alternatives, the DWR has blatantly stacked the deck in favor of the Delta tunnel. It was DWR's intention to make a timely comparison of the DCP with no-tunnel alternatives impossible – disregarding the fact that the project would cost billions in ratepayer dollars, further degrade the largest and most productive estuary on the West Coast, send Southern California water customer rates skyrocketing, and do nothing to improve water supply security.
The alternatives to the DCP – including conservation – are highly effective, as Governor Newsom well knows. His own 2020 Water Resilience Portfolio states:
“…The most cost-effective, environmentally beneficial way to stretch water supplies is through better water use efficiency and eliminating water waste…. Recycled water is a sustainable, nearly drought-proof supply when used efficiently, and the total volume of water California recycles today could triple in the next decade.”
This is by no means a minor oversight. Government agencies should develop accurate economic information when considering any public works project. In Natural Resources Defense Council v. U.S. Forest Service, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that accurate economic analysis is required “…to allow an informed comparison of the alternatives considered in the EIS.”
MWD, all other affected water districts, and California's ratepayers and taxpayers are entitled to a revised Draft EIR for the DCP, one that is accompanied by a detailed, accurate and publicly available benefit-cost analysis.